Here's my two cents on the matter. I've sunk around 150 hours into the game beating the single player 3 times and having a full master roster in my arena, with my main wearing full exceptional plate and the rest wearing normal or higher quality. At first I found the game quite challenging, like most of us, and now I'm extremely consistent with my footwork/precision leaving myself feeling slightly underwhelmed. However, I understand that this is just the tip of the iceberg, and that the developers don't want to deter new players through unreasonable, unforgiving mechanics. As previous comments mentioned once new levels are added we are going to see a progressively more difficult game which will satiate us hardcore gamers.
In regards to the unconscious mechanic I do think it is a good thing. You're discounting the learning curve associated with examina and you're looking at it from the perspective of an experienced player. I too want more challenging content but I also want to see this game succeed above a niche crowd. Again, you still can die if your healthbar is consumed by red damage, and body looting will be implemented, as stated by many commentors. Don't be so quick to write off this game as being easy mode, because it certainly isn't. Although some of us may share your sentiments there is still a large percentage of players that feel very differently.
Patience young one! You may find that future content exceeds your expectation, causing you to reevaluate your views.
This is a good post but let me ask you. Why do "we want the game to succeed beyond a niche crowd"?
The market is not infinite. There are different crowds. You can make games that appeal to a large crowd and compete with huge companies like Bethesda or you can corner the market in a niche crowd, for example hard core RPG enthusiasts.
Why do we want the casuals to influence the path this game takes?
Imagine with perma death in the future and the inclussion of let's say complicated traps.
Now in most games nobody cares about traps. In most games you will just reload if you get hit too bad by one. And BAM you've just ruined that part of the game now. A trap is really only challenging if the first time.
By killing perma death they are killing a mindset. A miindset that made the game exciting for me, just like I Ejoyed games like the older versions of Tibia, Ultima Online and Eve Online but can't enjoy games like WoW precisely because of the lack of consequences for your actons.
Well take for example Planescape torment. A game made long ago. Death there was part of life. Despite infinite lives I felt more obliged not to die than in rougelikes with permanent death because I knew (or I thought more precisely) that part of my mind and soul was being taken away. Deaths even had an effect on your character interactions.Thought you will be happy to know that in Sui Generis (which everything in exanima is developed for) you wont only have the KO mechanics, but also a respawn mechanic for when you die (its part of the lore, its the only thing that makes you special compared to other npc's)
Depending on how they develop Sui the system of respawns could influence a dynamic world in ways that still keep it interesting. But that remains to be seen. In a dungeon crawler like Exanima it just doesn't make sense that who ever just fought you doesn't kill you and instead just PARTLY loots you. It requires some serious suspension of disbelief.
ps: just a short story. With my father we played a lot family console game, and there is a game called 1942. We couldnt get to the end back then. My father time to time played that game over the years without luck, he could do good scores and all but not reaching the end of it. So after maybe about 15 years later (aprox, a bit more) i felt nostalgic and downloaded the family simulator for pc and played that game. My father aproach to watch me play. So almost next to the end (didnt know about it) and with the last life, i get straight to the end.
I really don't get the hate against you Bear. That's a fantastic story and encapsulates my feeling too. I have a similar memory but it doesn't concern death, it has more to do with a puzzle we couldn't solve. And then of course there is Super Mario World 3!
Oh my god, whether with friends or alone. It took like 4-5 hours or more to complete. You'd have to leave the console on over the night. NO FUCKING SAVES HERE SON.
THe intensity, the fucking RAGE if you or your buddy died just before the end on one of those huge koopa-fort maps like the tank battle map. Though the worst for me was always the later maps of World 7 with the enless rows of flesh eating plants.
I also had a game similiar to 1942 called Bomber Raid on Sega Master. I can't even remember if I ever beat it. Today it's so much easier with Save States and emulators. It's just not the same thing. It's like when the internet became cheap and Wiki-sites came up.
All those quests and the credit and sense of pride you could feel about being the first one to figure it out went out of the window because the info was all up there for anyone to read.
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